Reviewed by Mark D. Fullerton, History of Art, Ohio State
University, fullerton.1@osu.edu.

This study is representative of a growing interest in recent
scholarship in exploring the relationships between medical texts
and sculpture in Classical Greece.1 The
premise is a logical
one. Each sculptural representation of the human body has as its
frame of reference the human body itself. Traditionally, we have
constructed that frame of reference from what we perceive the
human body to look like as well as what we know about its
functions. The use of ancient medical texts should ideally allow
us to evaluate sculptural representations according to what the
ancients themselves thought about human anatomy and physiology.
In this way we can attach meaning to certain renderings of
anatomical features and thus can construct what may be called an
iconography of anatomy. The study of sculpture would thereby
replace formalistic views of stylistic change and subjective
judgements about "Classical idealism" with more scientific and
semiologically compelling analyses of form and meaning.

The enterprise is not without problems, as Métraux is
clearly
aware. First, the textual evidence is slight and indirect for
the Early Classical period -- the topic of this book. The bulk of
written material is fourth century or later, and the views of the
earlier Classical era must be reconstructed from fragmentary
philosophical writings and later ideas presumed to maintain
earlier traditions. Second, it is common knowledge that the
makers of things, including sculptors and painters, were in
Classical Greece not considered to be of the same intellectual
level as the makers of ideas, including philosophers or even
sophists.2 Consequently, there is some
question as to whether
a sculptor would even have been aware of the intricacies of
medical theorizing. Métraux addresses both of these problems by
pointing out how medical knowledge represents the intersection of
philosophy with popular knowledge, given immediate relevance of
the topic to each individual's personal experience. In popular
knowledge, there is, Métraux argues, an especially strong element
of tradition, thus it is highly likely that much in works of the
fourth century preserves ideas from the fifth. Similarly,
because of the popular interest in medical knowledge, it is
reasonable to assume that sculptors like other citizens, were
aware of its teachings, at least along general lines.

As a self-described "preliminary study" Métraux's book is
narrowly focussed. It considers an extremely small number of
sculptures placed within the short span of time 480-450 B.C. He
isolates several common features as characteristic of Early
Classical sculpture and seeks to explain their appearance in
medical terms. From this modest objective there emerges a broad
and inclusive explanation for the change from Archaic to
Classical style -- an explanation which is based on the medical
reading of stylistic features as signifying particular beliefs
about the body and objectives of the artist. Since the stylistic
change in question is the most obvious and significant such
change in the history of Greek art and since Métraux's
explanation varies considerably from the two traditional views
(formalist and historicist), the implications of his study reach
far beyond its narrow topic.

The specifics of Métraux's interpretation, presented in the
third
and fourth chapters and conveniently summarized on pp. 91-92,
are as follows: Physicians and natural philosophers (and
presumably sculptors) shared an interest in identifying 1) the
manifestations of animating forces in the body, and 2) those
features of the human body unique to the human species. Primary
among the former were respiration and motion. Respiration was
indicated in sculpture by various means, including the depiction
of veins and a redesigned torso -- especially a peculiarly Early
Classical form for the so-called iliac-inguinal line separating
the abdominal area from the pubic region and hips. Motion was
suggested by contrapposto. Uniquely human characteristics
include the depiction of eyelashes and showing the eyes neither
completely open nor closed. These features are among the
defining traits of the Early Classical period, and their use in
sculpture was motivated by a direct influence from
contemporaneous medical/philosophical thinking. The Early
Classical style evolved for the purpose of creating images which
were both more animate and more "human" than those of the
preceding Archaic era.

Conceptually this approach is very promising in that it offers a
means to analyze sculptural images which is based in something
other than subjective assessments of idealism and verisimilitude.
However, Métraux's study falls short of its mark most
conspicuously in its treatment of the sculpture itself. First, a
very small number of sculptures are considered: the Omphalos
Apollo type, the relief of a girl with doves from Paros in the
Metropolitan Museum, and the Riace bronzes. Aside from the
excessively small size of the sampling, only the relief -- which
actually plays a very small role in the argument -- is assuredly an
Early Classical work. The date and origin of the Riace pieces is
much debated, and there is a very good chance that the Omphalos
Apollo type reflects only very generally, if at all, any Early
Classical bronze. In fact, Métraux provides a long discussion in
an attempt to explain the anomalously small head of the Omphalos
Apollo, when the most obvious explanation -- that the type is a
classicizing creation -- is not even considered.

Even more problematic than the selection of material are some
elements of interpretation. That the erect and shoulders-back
stance of the standing male figures reflects a deliberate attempt
to indicate breathing seems impossible to establish. Similarly,
that the open peplos of the Parian girl indicates a girdle which
has just fallen off as a result of breathing seems remote. At
times a closed mouth is argued to be indicative of breathing
(Parian girl) at other times an open mouth signifies the same
(Riace Warriors). While Métraux can establish that the depiction
of veins on the Riace bronzes corresponds to an arrangement
described in ancient texts and that the ancients did connect
blood vessels with respiration, it does not necessarily follow
that the depiction of blood vessels is a sign of respiration.
Throughout, Métraux presumes that since sculptors could have
known of the medical teachings, then they must have had them
firmly in mind when deciding what to include and what to omit in
the representations they created. Indeed, it would seem that to
a degree it was the sculptors' intention to make their
images seem alive, within the limitations of stylistic
convention. However, the devices developed by artists and the
conclusions reached by physicians were similarly developed from
empirical observation. It is a tricky proposition to separate
the instances when the artistic process derives from the medical
from the instances when the processes were parallel.

The book was not well proofread. There are numerous
typographical errors and internal page references were not
changed from pp.00 in several places. The plates, especially the
images of the Omphalos Apollo and Riace Warriors, are not of good
quality and frequently it is impossible to follow the author's
argument through visual material. It is exciting to think that
one could establish on a more concrete basis an iconography of
anatomy as a part of a general concern with the semiology of
style. However, the successful exploration of this possibility
will require a more complete and competent treatment of the
sculptures themselves than has been provided here.

NOTES

[1] E.g. the unpublished dissertation of
Gregory Leftwich,
Princeton University, 1987 and his contribution to the recently
published W. Moon ed., Polykleitos, the Doryphoros and
Tradition (Madison, 1995). See also the article by Richard
Tobin in the same volume.

[2] For a recent review of this problem, see
Ira Mark, in
Moon, see n.1, supra.